THE NEW YORKER phone number in the middle of the night. I was hooked. The Dodgers stayed in front, by a little, as the days ran down, and I did not believe they would lose. They had led all summer, after all-they were nine and a half up on the third-place Braves at the All-Star break-and their powerful, store-bought lineup (Eddie Murray, Juan Samuel, Darry] Straw- berry, Brett Butler, Kal Daniels, Gary Carter) knew the way home, if any team did. I did not change my mind late on the following Sunday night- it was a week before the end now- when, over ESPN, I saw them catch up with the Giants on a fluke play, an all-timer, after Sharperson broke his bat while hitting a hard infield bouncer, and a bat fragment went whirring out between third and short, distracting third baseman Matt Williams as he tried to make the play, and then struck the ball once again, in midair, as the tying run came home Strawberry singled in the winner, and the Dodger lead was still one game. This sort of luck, if anybody needs to be told, is an absolute sign of a pennant to come- but so, too, was the kind of game, two nights later at Cincinnati, that the Braves pulled out with a Dave Justice home run after they had spotted the Reds a six-run lead in the first inning. The competition was brutal by now, east and west: Hershiser threw a two- hitter for seven innings, and Smoltz a two- hitter for eight, with ten strikeouts, on the very same night. The Dodgers were winning at home and the Braves on the road, but then I realized that the Atlanta wins, night after night- five of them now, then six-were going up on the scoreboard at Dodger Sta- dium (and on the clubhouse television set) before the Dodgers had begun, or at least finished, their games. The time zones would settle this, and now, sure enough, the Dodgers dropped a game to the Padres after the Braves had won still again. It was all tied up, with three games to go. What the Dodgers had not wanted-had dreaded down the last weeks-was just ahead: a three- game weekend series against the Giants at Candlestick Park, with the pennant at stake. I made the trip, and what surprised me about the games was not the com- petitive fire of the fifth -place Giants but some shrill sounds of whining from the Dodger side. "The guy that wins-nobody likes him," said man- ager Lasorda on the field before the Friday-night meeting. "If we had a bad year, our team wouldn't fee] good if we beat the Giants now This is unique." A bit before, Brett Butler had said, "The Braves want to win but the Giants want to spoil. They are moti- vated by hatred and spoiling," and Darryl Strawberry joined the whim- pers with "If they want to beat us so bad, why didn't they beat us earlier, when it counted?" The fans wanted it this way, that's why. "Beat L.A.! Beat L.A.!" the well- wrapped Candlestick hordes chanted. "If We're Not Going, They're Not" proclaimed a banner in left field, while old true hearts in the stands, I don't doubt, reminded each other happily of the Joe Morgan home run (the other Joe Morgan) that had knocked the Dodgers out of a pennant here in 1982. The Braves were leading the Astros once again, up on the scoreboard, when the teams ran out on the field. The Giants took charge of things very quickly, when Will Clark hit a whis- tling two-run homer over the left-field fence in the bottom of the first, and Matt Williams, a few pitches later, flew another one even deeper into the same sector. The visitors hung on miserably, and brought the go-ahead run to the plate with two on in the seventh, against Giant reliever Jeff Brantley. But the batter-it was Straw- berry-took strike three, motionless, and the chance was gone. The next afternoon, the now second-place Dodg- ers ran into the fine young Giant left- hander Trevor Wilson on a good day (there are two Trevor Wilsons: one a Koufax and the other Charlie Brown), and he threw a two-hitter, closing down their season. In his clubhouse, Roger Craig said, "I'm glad the way it happened, but you have to have some compassion for the Dodg- ers." Someone asked Will Clark if he felt the same way. "Am I sorry for the .. \ r ; ('* /III , , .. // /' .a.. (OS /' ---- 95 Dodgers?" he replied. He burst out laughing. T HE folks to be pitied are some loyal supporters of the Blue Jays and the Pirates who have plugged along thus far only to have their heroes now take their leave in very short order, pushed off by a necessary retrospective of the World Series, and by the inabil- ity of this base ball-watcher to give equal attention to nineteen post-season ballgames. The Blue Jays, helped no end by some venturesome off-season trades that brought in Roberto Alomar and the veteran slugger Joe Carter from San Diego, and Devon White and, later on, Candy Maldonado and the wily knuckle baIler Tom Candiotti, picked up their defense and their spirits at the same time, and enjoyed an agreeable summer in first place in the American League East, save for some flutters that brought the Tigers into a three-day tie at the top in August, and a few nervous days on the West Coast, in the late going, when it looked as if it might slip away after all. Their local fans came out in astounding num- bers-just over four million of them, in the end, which was a record. The Jays, to be sure, had nothing but bad memories of the playoffs, having been whipped-once painfully, once eas- ily-in two prior appearances, to which their true fans would add their loss of the last seven games of the regular season in 1987, when a certified pen- nant went to the Tigers instead. It may have been some memory of these wounds that caused Toronto manager Cito Gaston to start his knuckle baller, Candiotti, against the Twins in the opening game of this playoff in the Metrodome-a hunch that went awry when he was knocked out in less than three innings and the Jays lost. A more likely first-game starter, the rookie right-hander Juan Guzman, looked sharp in Game Two, showing the Twins a buzzing fastball, while his mates evened matters with a 5-2 win I joined the teams at the Sky Dome (I'd been off in Pittsburgh, watching the opening N ationa] League games) for the third meeting of the set. This was the game when Joe Carter hit a first-inning homer and Maldonado an R.B.I. double, which turned out to be the only Toronto offense of the day. The telling moments-in the playoffs as well as in the game-seemed to come when Carter leaped for and missed